Traditional Wi-Fi Infrastructure mode WLAN includes a centralized Access Point (AP) to which multiple stations (STA) associate. STAs communicate with each other through the AP which is connected to a wired backbone network. The recently released industrial standard, Wi-Fi Peer to Peer (P2P), also known by the commercial name Wi-Fi Direct, allows devices to connect to each other directly without requiring any AP or Internet connectivity. As a basic feature of Wi-Fi Direct standard, the AP functionality is implemented in software which obviates the need of a specialized hardware to play the role of AP; thus allowing any device compatible with the standard to have the capability of acting as AP. Devices intending to communicate with each other participate in a comprehensive process of Group Formation, by which one of the devices assumes the role of Group Owner (GO) (analogous to AP) and the other acts as client (analogous to STA). Wi-Fi Direct standard deviates from Wi-Fi Infrastructure mode by doing away with the need for Internet or a router, and from Wi-Fi ad-hoc (IBSS) by increasing security and maximum supportable data rate. The standard does not allow transfer of Group Ownership in case a Group Owner wants to leave the group. This results in a disruption in group activity when the Group Owner leaves or quits from its leadership role.
In peer-to-peer networks like Wi-Fi Direct where the GO can be a human-intervened device like laptop computer or smart phones, the case of Selfish GO can be quite a common scenario who does not wish to spend its resources (power, processor etc.) for serving others after it is done with its service from the P2P group. At the same time, it will also be unfair on the part of the GO if it is asked to continue its service of group management even though it is no longer in need of any service from the group and requires an urgent service that is not available in the current group and needs it to join another group. Devices join a peer-to-peer group when they need each other's service; if any client device is allowed to leave a group freely once its service requirement is met, then the same rule should hold for the GO as well. Since the original motivation behind Wi-Fi Direct is to generalize the role of the AP by enabling any device to act as GO, the next step should be to further generalize it in the way that the GO should also be allowed to leave the group anytime like any other node in the group; or at least transfer its leadership role to other peers in the same group for load balancing.
There are a couple of publications in the related art to propose an exit scheme for the leaving GO without disrupting the current group. But these publications focus on cases where the GO opts to quit and chooses its successor and systematically hands over the GO-ship before leaving. For example, PTL 1 (US 2012/0278389 A1) discloses a scheme where the leaving GO asks for GO intent from multiple clients before it decides to quit and selects the most suitable node out of all the nodes who reply with an intent to become the next GO. The information about the new GO is then shared by the leaving GO before it leaves. PTL 2 (WO2013162496 A1) discloses a scheme where the leaving GO asks for intent of successor ship from the group members and prepares a list of successor GOs, which may be prioritized based on credentials and shares the list with the group members before leaving. Also, none of the two disclosed publications specify any mechanism for fast topology reformation when leadership is handed over from the leader to the successor.